January 20, 2026

Yesteryear
One year ago today: January 20, 2025, productivity 17%
Five years ago today: January 20, 2021, my only papaya tree.
Nine years ago today: January 20, 2017, Russian warm spells.
Random years ago today: January 20, 2001, Alfredo told him.

           Welcome to a day of mostly thinking. Yep, my party days are over. I was up at 5:30AM so I read my textbook until others came around. I finally “cracked” the way they used bitwise commands, a mixture of code I never appreciate. A breakfast of goat cheese on toast, Agt M. and I went over the medicals and the Cadillac. I may have to hit him up for another hospital ride. We tested every feature on that vehicle and talked. It was a flash of the old days, my plans, his technique, and I was needing a rest every half hour. Not good, but tomorrow I talk to the surgeon.

           But the kids will never settle down if I’m around so I said adios and headed for Miami. I drove through the old downtown and it has been wrecked. It’s now more a retirement condo canyon than the old tourist trap. All the wee shops that gave the place character are gone. The bookstores, the magic shop, the shoemaker, and the coffee shops. Poof, gone! Replaced by tattoo parlors, shigga-booga bars, and expensive eateries that do not open until late afternoon.

           The pawn shops remain. But the rest is cash advance outfits, marijuana dispensaries, and art shops whose lack of clients tell you they are probably money laundering fronts. Young Circle is now the “Arts Park’ and a skateboard ramp. The old Southern Hotel (many other names) is now a Food court with the upstair windows bricked up. Here’s a glimpse of my stunt double taking a stroll past, quite unimpressed.
           I kept busy past rush hour and then drove over to Snapper Creek via 826, listening to the second-last disk of the shrink story. It is finally picking up. The mob guy whose car was sideswiped showed up at his house with a knife and forced the daughter, Daisy, to strip. This reveals she is three months pregnant off some Italian from her French art studio. Henry saves the day by telling the thug there is a new treatment for his mental problems. But not before the goon notices a book of poetry on the table and forces Daisy to read a poem that calms him.

           He lets down his guard and the guys jump him, throwing him down the stairs. So there, folks, is your vindication that sending your daughter to poetry school could one day save your life. We are not done yet, as Hank must now rush to the hospital to save the life of the goon who just tried to kill him.

           It’s not just downtown that’s gone, entire beachfront and inland along the boulevard is got to seed. Bland concrete towers. Remember that old hotel that got by attention with all the antennas on the roof? Shown here, it is now an empty shell with nothing on top.

Picture of the day.
Rush E (impossible piano music).
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           By now, I have talked with a lot of people who’ve had bypass surgery. I seem to be right on the same path. The most common symptom is fatigue and guess what I found when I showed up at JZ’s. He’s a TV-watcher and I was so burnt out, I sat right down and, well, I sat there. He’s under the weather, seeming to catch every cough and cold, which seems to leave me along. Nobody had the energy to change the channel, so we watched a documentary concerning divorce, I got to tell you about this one.

           Overall divorce rates are falling except for women over 50, who are filing at double the historical numbers. They interviewed 8 women and showed outtakes of another 18 or 20. I found it farcically amusing. It was quickly plain all these women had one thing in common. They were all long-term TV addicts. That was avoided in the narrative, but the theme was constant. After 30 years of watching soaps, they decided their lives were empty, meaningless, and lacked “fun”. Me thinks what such dodo old people really get divorced from is reality. Finally he found the remote and we watched “Oceans 11”.

           Sure enough, he has not been shopping since I was last around. I got us over to CVS, here he is, looking at just one segment of the available cough medicines. That photo is so exciting, here is another. This is Agt. M discovering how so many things fit exactly into his Golder Ratio boxes, such as these two reams of printer paper.
           This revitalized it enough that we ate steak and potatoes, discussing investments and medical procedures. He knows as much about money as I do about cardiac surgery, namely about nil. But there is an alarming failure rate with the type of work I need. The good news is they would hardly slate such an operation on a truly weak heart that might not survive. And he is moving too slow. I told you his habit of shrugging away coughs and such, now a year later he’s fooling nobody trying to pretend that stroke was not as bad as all that.

ADDENDUM
           Once more, a somewhat arbitrary video generates a big viewership, so there it is for posterity. I think the unusual flora of Florida may have some lure to people used to seeing mostly cactus or pine trees. Enjoy.

Last Laugh